Skyrim - Discworld Mod Talk

[Ferosianinja]

Does this count as thread necromancy but don't let this die.

[AnardilTyrion]

Well, I see that the thread is a little... dead. But I really like to see a mod about the Night Watch. Some kind of detectivesque quest about murders and the dovahkiin coming to help.

[NexDavey]

Where can I get that hat? I've been wanting a red wizards hat for a long long time.

[7OOTnegaTerces]

First off, AWSOME IDEA, I LOVE YOU FOR THINKING AND THEN WORKING ON THIS MOD!!! Words alone can not convey the sense of excitement and anticipation I feel waiting for this mod to finish. Once I learn how to use the Creation Kit, I just may help out myself.

In the mean time, I've a suggestion that I think will help make this game a lot more stable (and probably easier to make). It has to do with the warning I heard at the start of the alpha trailer about not saving while controlling a body other than your own. The scripting is buggy and bad stuff happens. I'm pretty sure I know a simple way to fix this: trash whatever scripts you're using to allow the player to control other NPCs and just use the player instead.

"But wait," you cry, "Wouldn't that defeat the purpose and get rid of all those wonderful opportunities to play as someone else?!" No. Stop interrupting and let me finish. In Morrowind there was a mod that added random NPCs to the game. In order to add a LOT of new NPCs and make sure they all had different faces, it created special gloves for the NPCs that weren't gloves. They were masks. Thats right, the NPC would get a random glove that when equipped changed their face instead. Voilà, random NPC faces. This illustrates the basic concept that the mesh is the appearance. That bare midriff poking through on that outfit isn't actually the actor's body showing through their clothes, its a patch of bare skin that was added to the clothes mesh to make it look as if the actors body was visible there. What this means is that you can change the appearance of any actor, including the player, with the right mesh and make them look like whomever you want. Including some NPC who's real actor you've disabled and hid.

"But wait," you cry, "Wouldn't that still defeat the purpose as all the NPCs would continue to refer to the player as themselves and not someone else?!" No. Again, stop interrupting and let me finish! While browsing mods for Skyrim I've noticed several that let you assume a false identity, usually as a member of some faction, by wearing a certain outfit. If you can convince everyone you're an Imperial Storm(cloak) Trooper just by wearing the outfit, then you could make all the NPCs respond to the player as if they were some other NPC while wearing the disguise of that NPC. You might have to create special "I'm Actually ___" factions with factional greetings and conversations that take precedence over all of the player's dialogue, but you should be able to get the NPCs to react as if the player was someone else.

"But wait," you cry, " Wouldn't that still defeat the purpose as all the player would have to do to ruin things is remove their disguise too soon?!" No. Again, stop...oh, never mind... Another thing I remember from my good old Morrowind days was cursed items. I.E. items you couldn't unequip or remove until you had someone de-curse them for you (assuming you were stupid enough to wear mysterious and possibly cursed gear in the first place). Thus if the appearance altering player disguising outfit is cursed, they can't take it off until you let them (or better yet, remove it for them). And you need not stop there. You could empty the player's entire inventory, store it in a chest, and then restock them from a chest containing a duplicate of the NPC they are to control. Proper cursing on objects so that they either can't drop or can unequip them would allow you to keep the player from stealing anything you didn't want them to get by placing it in a chest for retrieval later when the player got their body back.

I'm willing to bet you might even be able to do the same thing with any spells or powers they have (assuming you can record what they do have before you remove it). And you most certainly can record and then over-write the player's stats with the NPC they are replacing. You might also have to change the player's height if the cursed-alter-and-diguse-garment-object-thingy (or as I like to call it, the "CAADGOT") can't do that.

Of course, if this is what you're already doing and you're still having trouble, then you must be doing something seriously wrong, because no one else doing any of the things I mentioned had any of the issues you've described.

"But wait," you cry, "Wou...migerasfd sdkien biwndeox dpwjnab!!!" *

Sigh... Silence is golden my friend...

...

But duct tape is silver.

...

* (Okay, yes, two of my examples were from Morrowind, not Skyrim, but they still should work without any issues!!!)

[Voivod333]

Some excellent ideas Tnega. Definitely something to look into. I know this thread looks dead and I don't want it to die either. However, currently with my new PS4 and Destiny, the Heroes of the Storm Alpha and the impending Gnomes and Goblins expansion for Hearthstone, and of course real life, I seem to have precious little time to do anything else. I still want to see the Discworld mod for Skyrim come to fruition and one day I hope to get back to it and see it happen. At this time however, it is simply not in the cards.

Edited December 6, 2014 by Voivod333

[DDProductions83]

First off, AWSOME IDEA, I LOVE YOU FOR THINKING AND THEN WORKING ON THIS MOD!!! Words alone can not convey the sense of excitement and anticipation I feel waiting for this mod to finish. Once I learn how to use the Creation Kit, I just may help out myself.

 

In the mean time, I've a suggestion that I think will help make this game a lot more stable (and probably easier to make). It has to do with the warning I heard at the start of the alpha trailer about not saving while controlling a body other than your own. The scripting is buggy and bad stuff happens. I'm pretty sure I know a simple way to fix this: trash whatever scripts you're using to allow the player to control other NPCs and just use the player instead.

 

"But wait," you cry, "Wouldn't that defeat the purpose and get rid of all those wonderful opportunities to play as someone else?!" No. Stop interrupting and let me finish. In Morrowind there was a mod that added random NPCs to the game. In order to add a LOT of new NPCs and make sure they all had different faces, it created special gloves for the NPCs that weren't gloves. They were masks. Thats right, the NPC would get a random glove that when equipped changed their face instead. Voilà, random NPC faces. This illustrates the basic concept that the mesh is the appearance. That bare midriff poking through on that outfit isn't actually the actor's body showing through their clothes, its a patch of bare skin that was added to the clothes mesh to make it look as if the actors body was visible there. What this means is that you can change the appearance of any actor, including the player, with the right mesh and make them look like whomever you want. Including some NPC who's real actor you've disabled and hid.

 

"But wait," you cry, "Wouldn't that still defeat the purpose as all the NPCs would continue to refer to the player as themselves and not someone else?!" No. Again, stop interrupting and let me finish! While browsing mods for Skyrim I've noticed several that let you assume a false identity, usually as a member of some faction, by wearing a certain outfit. If you can convince everyone you're an Imperial Storm(cloak) Trooper just by wearing the outfit, then you could make all the NPCs respond to the player as if they were some other NPC while wearing the disguise of that NPC. You might have to create special "I'm Actually ___" factions with factional greetings and conversations that take precedence over all of the player's dialogue, but you should be able to get the NPCs to react as if the player was someone else.

 

"But wait," you cry, " Wouldn't that still defeat the purpose as all the player would have to do to ruin things is remove their disguise too soon?!" No. Again, stop...oh, never mind... Another thing I remember from my good old Morrowind days was cursed items. I.E. items you couldn't unequip or remove until you had someone de-curse them for you (assuming you were stupid enough to wear mysterious and possibly cursed gear in the first place). Thus if the appearance altering player disguising outfit is cursed, they can't take it off until you let them (or better yet, remove it for them). And you need not stop there. You could empty the player's entire inventory, store it in a chest, and then restock them from a chest containing a duplicate of the NPC they are to control. Proper cursing on objects so that they either can't drop or can unequip them would allow you to keep the player from stealing anything you didn't want them to get by placing it in a chest for retrieval later when the player got their body back.

 

I'm willing to bet you might even be able to do the same thing with any spells or powers they have (assuming you can record what they do have before you remove it). And you most certainly can record and then over-write the player's stats with the NPC they are replacing. You might also have to change the player's height if the cursed-alter-and-diguse-garment-object-thingy (or as I like to call it, the "CAADGOT") can't do that.

 

Of course, if this is what you're already doing and you're still having trouble, then you must be doing something seriously wrong, because no one else doing any of the things I mentioned had any of the issues you've described.

 

"But wait," you cry, "Wou...migerasfd sdkien biwndeox dpwjnab!!!" *

 

Sigh... Silence is golden my friend...

 

...

 

But duct tape is silver.

 

...

 

* (Okay, yes, two of my examples were from Morrowind, not Skyrim, but they still should work without any issues!!!)

 

Voivod333, that was directed at me I am afraid. I didn't even know this thread existed, @700, wrong thread check my sig. And don't repost all that there either, I can tell you right now that ya while some mods CAN do what you suggest they utilize other mods to do it and really complex ways to do it as well. My way is simple, super fast, light on scripting, and quite frankly everything you suggested would take hundreds and hundreds more hours at the very minimum. Screw that. I am trying to make a mod not die before it's done lol

 

@Voivod333

If you have any original models/esp's for character design and any of the building meshes I saw from that one guy for the tower of art, I would love to use them with permission. I am failing hard at being completely true to discworld and instead am keeping to the spirit of it and the characters I use and whilst I am warping the hell out of some stories to make life easier on myself, I hope all in all my abhorrent attempts come off at least fun :)

 

 

A ton more info can be found on that youtube or check the alpha out yourself

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/58523/?